Single Opt-In vs. Double Opt-In: Which is Best for Your Email List?

Email Marketing

Single opt-in vs. double opt-in. It’s a debate that’s been raging on for years among email marketers. Which is best? Which is more conducive to building a quality list of leads? Which will grow your business quicker? And so on.

This is one of the first decisions you’ll need to make when initiating an email marketing campaign.

Therefore, it’s critical that you look at all of the angles and weigh the pros and cons of each approach.

For this post, I’d like to discuss the key differences between single opt-ins vs. double opt-ins so that you’ll know which one makes the most sense for your brand.

Only after clicking on “confirm subscription” am I officially a subscriber.

The Case for Single Opt-Ins

Perhaps the biggest reason to use a single opt-in is the speed in which you can grow your email list.

Just think about it.

The extra step involved with a double opt-in will inevitably reduce the number of people who complete the signup process.

In fact, GetResponse states, “Marketers generally see about 20-30 percent faster list growth when they use single opt-in.”

They also point out that this roughly equals the average rate of list churn for an email list over the course of a year.

So this is pretty substantial and certainly food for thought.

Going with a single opt-in basically guarantees to help you grow your email list more quickly than using a double opt-in.

While this may not be super important if you’ve already got a large volume of leads coming in from other marketing channels, it certainly can be if you’re a fledgling startup that’s trying to get the ball rolling.

This means you can get your promotions in front of a larger audience and inevitably get more leads coming in.

A Simpler Process

Another benefit is that it’s easier on the user.

Rather than having to look for a confirmation email, open it and click on the confirmation button, a single opt-in only requires the user to enter their email address once. That’s it.

While it may not seem like a big deal to confirm that a person does, in fact, wish to subscribe, it does create some additional steps, which not everyone will be fond of.

Or if someone has an inbox that’s already filled to the brim, the confirmation email may be lost or forgotten about.

In this case, you would end up losing out on a potentially valuable subscriber.

According to their findings, “20 percent or more email addresses from single opt-in could be worthless anyway.”

Why?

“There is a chance that people may mistype their email address. Even if they enter the correct email, they don’t really use that email often because their only intention is to download your freebie on your thank you page.”

Or if someone has signed up a friend or family member who doesn’t wish to receive your emails, they could potentially accuse you of spam as well.

A double optin helps guard against this and ensures that the majority of your leads are rock solid.

And this is huge because if your leads don’t really care, what’s the point?

In addition, many people who want to unsubscribe will simply flag a message as spam because it’s quicker and easier than looking for the unsubscribe link and potentially jumping through some other hoops.

I know that I’ve done this before, especially if the unsubscribe button is in some inconspicuous location.

And there’s one last dilemma.

If only a small percentage of your subscribers are opening and engaging with your emails (which is more likely with a single opt-in), it will inevitably reduce your IP’s credibility.

In turn, you run a higher risk of your emails being sent to spam.

But going with a double opt-in, the increased open and engagement rate should bolster the credibility of your IP and reduce the number of times your messages are flagged as spam by recipients.

What Do Other Marketers Have to Say?

I usually find that when making decisions like these, it’s helpful to know what the collective opinion of others is.

So I did some research to see which tactic email marketers prefer on average—single or double opt-ins.

It turns out that it’s pretty even with single opt-ins narrowly beating out double opt-ins.

According to a worldwide poll from Litmus, 53.5 percent of email marketers prefer using a single opt-in and 46.5 percent using a double optin.

Note that 60 percent of the respondents for this poll were from the US, and there was just a bit more disparity among US-based marketers.

Litmus explains,

Among US respondents, 55 percent said SOI was better, versus 45 percent saying DOI was better. In the rest of the world, the gap was narrower, but the result was the same, with 51 percent saying SOI was better and 49 percent saying DOI was.

So there you have it.

The majority of email marketers prefer single opt-ins, but not by much.

Choosing Your Strategy

There really is no right or wrong option here. Both single and double opt-ins have their merit.

Deciding which tactic is best for your email list really just boils down to your priorities.

If rapid growth is your primary goal and you want to build your list as quickly as possible, then a single opt-in is your best bet.

This should allow you to build your list 20-30 percent quicker and is often the right choice for campaigns that are in their infancy.

But if you’re more concerned with the quality of your leads and want a list that’s highly plugged in and engaged, then a double optin would be ideal.

While your list won’t grow quite as quickly and you won’t have quite the same volume of leads upfront, you can be certain that your subscribers are genuinely interested in your brand.

Therefore, you can expect a higher open-rate and increased engagement levels.

If you’ve got leads coming in from other channels and can afford to give it some time, this is usually the way to go.

Experimenting

Still not sure which approach to take?

I would recommend doing a bit of experimentation to see what works best.

For instance, you might want to start with single opt-in for a month and monitor metrics like:

How many subscribers you get

What your open-rate is

How much engagement your emails receive

Conversions

Then for the second month, switch to double opt-in and do the same.

If there’s not a significant drop off in your volume of subscribers, you’ll probably want to stick with double optin.

After all, those subscribers will be of higher value on your average.

But if you do notice a major drop off, you’ll probably just want to use single opt in moving forward.

Conclusion

There is a myriad of factors to consider when choosing between single and double opt-ins.

But the way I see it, it essentially boils down to whether you’re going for quality or quantity.

If it’s quality, double optin is the best way to go.

Although your list will be smaller, the average value of a subscriber should be considerably higher.

If you’re going for quantity, then it’s single opt-in all the way because your list should experience 20-30 percent faster growth.

Are you more concerned with growing your email list quickly or generating highly qualified leads?

Emil Kristensen

Emil is the CMO and co-founder of Sleeknote. When he’s not busy with writing awesome content and building the Sleeknote brand, he spends his time reading blog posts and listen to podcasts.

1 Comment

May 7th, 2018 at 8:03 am

David McNally

Have you considered GDPR with regards to single opt-in? How will you prove that the owner of the Personally Identifiable Information has given you consent to store his or her data if no opt-in email has been sent?